UNEP has helped launch a new mobile app to provide socio-economic and environmental data on the Republic of Kyrgyzstan in real-time and free of charge.

The new app, developed under the Poverty and Environment Initiative run by UNEP and UNDP, provides live data while also covering the past five years. The information is available in Kyrgyz, Russian and English and is presented in the form of publications, fact sheets, videos and other material.

“People who use this mobile application will have constant access to statistical data and can see the real situation in the country, taking advantage of a ‘pocket’ guide, and being able to make the right managerial and public decisions on this basis,” stressed Orozbaeva Kanykey, Head of the Department of Statistics of sustainable development and the environment at Kyrgyzstan’s National Statistical Committee, which collects a large share of the data.

The app contains a special ‘Green growth indicators’ button – meaning it could be used to make informed and timely decisions promoting sustainable growth and development.

The concept of open data follows the idea that information should be made available in a machine-readable format for further use and distribution without copyright restrictions, patents or other controls.

Countries adopting these principles have seen their economies grow – with small and medium businesses having access to public data being shown to grow 15% more than those without it.

UNEP is furthermore upgrading an eco-portal which will be linked to UNEP Live - an open platform of environmental data from official and citizen sources with information on air quality, biodiversity, forests and protected areas for Central Asia for example.

On websites, information may be presented in a PDF document rather than in a live format, while users may not have access to the internet to view it nor speak the language the information is presented in – issues an app and eco-portals can more easily solve.

The new app can be downloaded via the links below for Android and iOS. It is foreseen that the next version of the app will allow for various forms of data to be compared in the form of graphs.

For more information please visit the UNEP Ozone Action Facebook group here or write to nara.luvsan@unep.org